WHAT a surprise! Newly re-structured West Midlands Police fell short of hitting any targets of its key crime detection rates. (Telegraph, July 29).

Is it any wonder when CID officers have to operate from Birmingham and the ConDems decide to throw away the promises made by the outgoing Labour government to answer 999 calls in six minutes.

I didn’t read anywhere in the ConDem election manifestos where “making it impossible for police officers to do their jobs” was laid before the electorate.

How are our overworked traffic officers going to answer calls for assistance from say Keresley, or Cannon Park, when there is only one – yes one – traffic car on the road, and that has been tasked to attend a road traffic accident on the Bristol Road, Birmingham?

Chief constable Chris Sims says “The systems and process changes as a result of Paragon (the wonderful action plan is named Paragon) have contributed to this and success rates should improve with time”.